Max

I've had very little time to scrap this fall, but I had to do this one first! My father-in-law had been fighting cancer for 3 years and this past summer he decided to sell his horses. He had one he couldn't sell and wanted one of his kids to have him. To make a long story short, we looked into bringing him here, and when we went down last month were able to bring him back with us. It was a bittersweet trip as we had gone down because my fil was doing poorly, and he passed away while we were there. We were glad to have been there, and it worked very well for my mother-in-law that we were able to bring Max back with us. I call him our inheritance and we are thrilled to have this part of Dad's life to share with our children. He loved his horses and loved teaching his grandchildren to ride, but we never lived close enough for our kids to have more than an occasional ride with Opa. So while having Max is a dream come true for me, it is even more special because he is my father-in-law's Tennessee Walker.

For the large photo I duplicated it, then used PSE7's amazing Magic Extractor to extract me and Max. With this layer above the copy, I then reduced the opacity of the copy so the background of the photo would fade into the background of the layout. I softened the edges with Melissa's Misty brush set with the eraser tool.

The cowboy life is one I often dreamed about. When I was a child I thought I was deprived because I didnít grow up on a ranch. But when my new husband, who did grow up around horses, said he would never own a horse, I assumed that horses would never be part of my life other than in my dreams. Whenever we were able to attend a rodeo I relished every moment watching the competitions and wishing I could be down there among the horses instead of in the stands. When Victor told me he was looking into the possibility of taking one of his fatherís horses, you could have knocked me over with a feather! Less than a month later we were the proud owners of Max - a beautiful black Tennessee Walking Horse. My father-in-law had bred these beauties for many years, but towards the end of his 3-year fight with cancer he realized he needed to sell them. He wanted one of his children to have one of his horses, and we were thrilled to be blessed with this grand inheritance. Victoria inherited my love for the horse life, or perhaps she inhereited it from Opa. Either way, she and I are in our glory learning how to care for Max and making friends with him. This is literally a dream come true for me. We are both so excited to be